


The Talk of the Office

by clavicular



Category: The IT Crowd
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clavicular/pseuds/clavicular





	The Talk of the Office

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AriadnesThread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriadnesThread/gifts).



Every few weeks, Jen and a group of old school friends met for coffee. Every few weeks, Jen had to question how on _earth_ they remained friends.

 

“You and that Roy spend a lot of time together,” Katie said. She held the coffee to her lips without actually drinking from it and watched Jen over the rim. Jen always wondered if Katie intended to look sly and calculating when she did that, or it if was just an appropriate side-effect.

 

“We’re friends,” Jen said, and left her own cup firmly planted on the table.

 

“Of course,” Katie said. “I just wondered why you’ve been going to so many…” she paused, as if about to pronounce something foreign. “LANparties.”

 

Jen was almost startled into telling the embarrassing truth: she’d heard the word ‘party’ and thought _how bad could it be?_ Fortunately, she caught herself before she could betray her appalling naivety.

 

“Yes, well, I’m just trying to expand my cultural horizons,” she said. She sipped her coffee primly.

 

“Of course,” Katie repeated. She left her cup resting against her bottom lip.

 

*

 

Jen could privately admit that she’d been noticing the whispers for weeks now. She’d thought it was because of the company-wide computer upgrades she was working on. Well, making Moss and Roy work on. After that particular chat with her friends, though, she felt as if every eye in the building was on her. And now she couldn't help noticing the way everyone was looking at her. The way that whenever she neared a group of people, they immediately fell silent. Probably not commending her on her good work, then.

 

She stormed into the office and rounded on Roy.

 

“Did you realize we were dating?” she demanded.

 

Roy blinked at her. “Are we dating?”

 

“So my friends tell me,” Jen said. “Apparently half the bloody company knows.”

 

Moss poked his head up from under his desk. God knew what he was doing down there.

“Oh yes,” he said. “It’s the talk of the office.” He ducked back down again.

 

“This cannot be happening to me." Jen covered her face with her hands. "Even _Moss_ knew before I did.”

 

“Alright,” Roy said, standing up. “This has to stop.”

 

“What?!” Moss said, hitting his head on the underside of the desk. “Why?”

 

Roy stared incredulously at Moss. Or rather, at the desk concealing Moss.

 

“It’ll ruin my reputation. I'll be called the office bicycle. I can’t be the office bicycle, Moss!”

 

Jen couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “Oh, please. Everyone already knows you’re the office bicycle.”

 

Moss re-emerged from under the desk, rubbing his head. His face was scrunched up in utter bafflement. “Where did the bicycles come from?"

 

Roy folded his arms. “Jen’s implying things about my virtue,” he said, and ignored Moss' persistent look of confusion. “The point is, this stops. Now.”

 

Jen was still having trouble containing her laughter. “Fine by me."

 

“It’s not fine by me!” Moss tripped on his chair in his haste to stand up. He caught himself on something large and solid just inside the doorway. It was a delivery man.

 

“It's not fine by you," Roy said flatly. "What does us dating have to do with you?”

 

Moss spun around, fixing a glare on Roy. The delivery man backed away.

“It’s my project, that’s what!” he said.

 

“Package for a Maurice Moss?” the delivery man tried.

 

“I’ve been working on this for months and just when it’s taking off, you come in and…”

 

The delivery man proffered his package at Jen hopefully.

 

“Moss,” Jen said, her voice dangerously low, “what exactlyis your project?”

 

“I’ll just leave this here, then,” the delivery man said, setting the package down by the door.

 

Moss turned his glare on Jen. “Oh yes, you can’t even remember what I’m working on. That’s just typical, that is. That's so...”

 

“You can sign for it later,” the delivery man added, turning to leave. Under his breath, he muttered, “It’s not like I’d be in trouble if 3000 year old rock samples went missing in transit or anything.”

 

Moss’ head snapped up. “Oh, brilliant!” he said, the argument forgotten.

 

Roy dropped his head forward, somewhere between frustration and despair. “Moss, what is going _on?_ ”

 

“Carbon dating!” Moss said, grabbing the clipboard off the delivery man and signing it with a rapid scrawl. “I’m working on a computer program to speed the process. That’s my project.”

 

Roy and Jen stared at him, speechless. Roy recovered first.  “Carbon dating. What does carbon dating have to do with...” he gestured wildly at Jen.

 

“Well, I need you two to do the actual _dating_ while I work on the program.”

 

“So... you actually know nothing about Jen and I dating. Or not dating, as the case may be. Right."

Moss blinked at him. "Are you and Jen dating?"

Roy opened his mouth, probably to confirm that no, they were absolutely _not_ dating, and then stopped.

"Moss, are there _more_ 3000 year old rocks under that desk?”

 

Jen wasn’t really paying attention. She had more important things on her mind.

 

“You!” She jabbed a finger at the delivery man.

 

He hesitated, glancing between her and the door.

 

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, stalking towards him. He looked sheepishly back at her. “What are they gossiping about, upstairs?" she asked. "Are they talking about me? What are they saying?”

 

The delivery man floundered helplessly. “Uh,” he said. “Uh, I don’t really know-” and then he saw the look on Jen’s face. “Budget cuts! I hear there’s going to be company-wide budget cuts. I really have to…” he glanced back at the door.

 

“So you had _no idea_ that Roy and I were dating?”

 

“Not dating!” Roy called without looking over, and went back to yelling at Moss about why keeping 3000 year old rocks under your desk was a terrible idea..

 

"Not dating," Jen ammended. "You had no idea Roy and I weren't dating?"

“No offense,” the delivery man said, “but who _are_ you?”

 

“…right,” Jen said, feeling herself deflate.

 

The delivery man took advantage of her momentary distraction and dashed out the door.

 

Jen turned back to Moss and Roy. Moss was meekly repackaging the rocks that were under his desk.

 

“And anyway," Roy was saying, "carbon dating is a highly specialised field. You should hire someone who knows what they're doing. What makes you think Jen or I know the first thing about dating?”

 

“Paid professionals make everything simpler,” Jen agreed. She smirked at Roy pointedly. Roy glared at her.

 

“I’m _not_ a paid professional,” he snapped. “I’m not the office bicycle, either.”

 

Jen’s eyes widened innocently. “Did I say you were?”

 

Still smirking, she headed off into her office.

She pretended to answer important emails for half an hour, and then organised a couple of meetings she knew Douglas would cancel later in the week. She fielded a couple of technical calls – “Have you tried turning it off and on again? Are you sure it’s plugged in? OK, I’ll put you through to one of our senior technicians” – and was beginning to fear she’d have to do some actual work when Roy appeared in her doorway.

 

“Did Moss finish packing up his experiment?” Jen asked.

 

“Oh yeah, I saw to that,” Roy said, fidgeting where he stood. He didn’t quite meet her eye. “So no one really thought…”

 

“No,” Jen said. She thought about the way the delivery man had looked, as if he had absolutely no interest in her life at all, and wondered if being the source of office gossip would really be so bad.

 

“Good,” said Roy. “Because I can’t have people…”

 

“No,” said Jen. “Me neither.”

 

“Right,” said Roy.

 

There was a moment of silence. They avoided each others' eyes.

 

After a moment, Roy risked a glance at her. Jen pretended to shuffle her files.

“I hear there’s a good Italian restaurant that’s just opened up a few blocks from here,” Roy said. "If you were, you know... It's fine if you're not! I just thought..."

 

Jen smiled at him over her computer screen.

 

“It’s a date,” she said.


End file.
